Dreams of the Dragon King
by Void
Summary: Drabble series; Zuko POV; AU. The Fire Lord dreams of fire and ash and oceans. It's not going to get any easier.
1. Chapter 1

It amazes Zuko how quickly the palace closes in on itself to repair the damage. Servants materialize within days to clear away the blood and the cinders and the rubble. Before Zuko can wrap his mind around Ozai's death, Azula's death, the Avatar's victory, his own survival, the first formal ceremony has begun.

To cleanse. To purify. To bring fortune to his reign.

Zuko cringes inside himself. He isn't sure if they're trying to cleanse away his own failures and weaknesses or the shame of Ozai's defeat or the memory of a hundred years of war.

With fields of battle still smoldering they invest him with the powers and obligations of the Fire Lord. They perform the sacred rites while Zuko wears the sacred vestments and assumes the sacred throne. Throughout the endless litany of vows and blessings he sits imperious and silent behind a wall of flame.

Decades ago there had been feasts and dances. Under Azulon all formal ceremonies lost their frivolity and took on a military precision. For Zuko, the endless, dull beat of the drums and the drone of the horns sound like a funeral march.

Zuko feels like a fraud. Ozai was the Fire Lord. Azula was the Fire Lord. Zuko is still the outcast prince who returned only to bring ruin to their house.

But the courtiers don't see that. The great families don't care who ascends the throne as long as they receive their due. Zuko helped to defeat Ozai, and Zuko is the Fire Prince, direct heir to the throne. It's no question.


	2. Chapter 2

The wealth coming in on the sleek ships has dwindled to scraps from hard won bargains. New treaties with the Earth Kingdom ensure trade rather than plunder. The two powerful nations are too intertwined to allow a complete break, however much some in the Earth kingdom might want it. Zuko spends hours poring over correspondence: trade agreements, reparations, repatriations.

This is his real work: carefully and patiently undoing some of the damage that was done; promoting trade and growth; finding homes and occupations for men who only knew war.

Outside his office, treacherous and spiteful whispers steal through the halls.

Zuko ignores it. He knows that his assassination is only a matter of time.

He works to forge a better future. He puts all of his strength and all of his wit into this end so that it might live on.

Some day, tomorrow or next month or next year, the poison or the dagger or the scorching inferno will find him. The headaches that already plague him will consume his mind and his gut. He'll sweat and bleed and expire on silk sheets and then all those elegantly dressed, perfectly formal courtiers will finally be able to bow their last formal bows to his pyre.


	3. Chapter 3

Aang and Katara descend to his kingdom like deities out of the sky. Air and water and light. They seem to emanate hope.

Aang speaks of the Fire nation's past and its future as if he could stitch the two together into a seam that would cover up the present. For a hundred and sixteen year old boy, for the Avatar, a hundred years is as real as yesterday or tomorrow.

Katara strides through his blood red halls in a swath of blue silk and speaks of factory pollution and water supplies. She waves her hand over maps of his kingdom and tendrils of water stain the areas of greatest need.

The factories there, he tries to tell them, were the only source of work for those people.

Send them back to their farmland, Katara replies. The Fire Nation needs food.

The nobles snatched up the farmland generations ago. To just send them back would mean starvation or worse.

Aang wants everything to get better, now that the war has ended, but he furrows his brow in what is becoming a habitual expression of both frustration and patience.

Work on it, he tells Zuko.

That's what I do every day.

For all that Aang still retains the innocence and joy of a child, he matured over the course of the war and he matures even more doing the work of peace. He has begun to grow into the identity of Avatar. He is beginning to walk with the wisdom of his countless former lives.

Katara, on the other hand, is impatient for progress. She can't rely on words and she can't glimpse a problem without wading in to help.

While Aang and Zuko lock themselves in with papers and visions and histories, Katara flies off with Appa into the night. She returns a week later exhausted, trailing soiled robes and villagers' accolades. She didn't blow up any factories this time, she tells them.

The peasants see her almost as a goddess, while the nobles see her as Water Tribe infiltrator, a subversive foreign threat.

The river may be clean now, but a small city's worth of workers still can't survive on fish.

That was only the worst town that was hurt by the peace, Katara explains. Their water was poisoned but it's healed now, she offers with a shrug. It's a start.

Zuko grumbles at her to stop meddling.

Either way, he has to work to change the whole structure of the economy and he has to work to fight or mollify the nobles and he has to work to win over the citizenry and he has to work and work and work.

You can handle it, Zuko. We believe in you.

She stares into his eyes like that should mean something, like the trust of a girl in a boy who had once betrayed her means anything to the whisperers just waiting for their chance to curtail the radical and traitorous actions of this false Fire Lord.

Stay with me, he wants to beg her.

He wants to cling to the Avatar's feet. Take me with you. Please.

Aang and Katara take their leave as softly and completely as smoke, as water vapor.


	4. Chapter 4

The third summer since his reign began is finally easing itself into a warm, smoky autumn.

And Mai is still here.

Mai is still here, in the palace. Zuko is the only person she ever cared about who is still alive, and so she finds her way to his side, like a cat without an owner seeking offerings of milk.

Zuko has been aware of her as a shadow in the corridors. He is surprised to discover that he trusts her. He has known Mai his whole life. She gravitates toward willful people because nothing interests her enough to warrant will or action of her own. Azula was her friend, her leader, but in the end Mai rejected being led.

Zuko doesn't know if Mai is loyal to him, exactly, but he knows that she will be his ally. She may not really care about the Fire Nation or recovery or peace, but she will support him and protect him because she cares about him. Perhaps it's just a habit to her at this point, but she cares about him.

It's more than he can ask.

Mai slips into his rooms and slips her warm, calloused hands into his clothing, puts her mouth on his skin, and it's more than he can ask.


	5. Chapter 5

Sun shining down on gracefully swaying dancers, birds singing in the blue sky, even a breeze stirring the leaves of the trees lining the periphery of the courtyard.

It is a perfect day. The ceremonial dancers, elegant and colorful, smile as they turn and sway, their movements pregnant with joy and possibility. Aang, of course, had been the one to suggest that Zuko reinstate the dancing.

It is his birthday.

Zuko remembers cold, filthy beds and hot tea and wisdom it took him too long to accept and being young and fierce and a nameless traveler.

His robes and his crown, even the heavy knot of his hair, everything feels like it's weighing him down, closing in over him, suffocating him.

Zuko closes his eyes and breathes.


	6. Chapter 6

Mai glides around the palace with her ears open. She still makes her usual snide remarks, but somehow they transform into suggestions, and after a while she is all but making her own appointments of ministers, advisers, wardrobe attendants. It's not that she particularly cares, but she can't help noticing what needs to happen, people who need to be promoted or removed.

Sometimes she'll string along a treacherous courtier for months only to exile him or reapportion his family lands to someone more loyal. It's a game to her, like her knives. She can't help her skills of observation and analysis.

No one else will do it, and she has nothing else to do.

Zuko finds himself breathing in the palace again, beginning to suspect that he might live another day, another week, another year.

It's more than he ever expected.


	7. Chapter 7

It happens slowly, the drifting apart. Of course they were already two individuals, but now silence and discord creep into the air between them. Katara is visibly angry at times, while Aang focuses only on the work, acting as though nothing is wrong.

One day Zuko overhears them arguing, Katara's voice rising and falling against Aang's even murmur. Zuko doesn't mean to, but he has paused in the shadow of a pillar and he is holding his breath.

"I know what you're saying, Katara, and I understand how you feel, but I... I'm the last. It isn't just about children. These women are genuinely trying to bring back airbending culture."

"Aang..." A heavy sigh. "Some things about airbending culture I don't think I can ever... ever... be a part of. This is not how we do things in the Water Tribe."

"I chose you once over the Avatar state, Katara. Please don't ask me to choose you over the Air Nomads."

"I never asked you to choose me over anything!"

Zuko feels a sudden ache in his body, his blood throbbing. He can hear ripples splashing in the ornamental pond where the Avatar and his Ambassador are having their discussion.

He resumes his walk and tries to pretend he doesn't understand. No one questions the rebuilding of the air temples and the expansion of the shrines. Dotted around the earth kingdom, they act as orphanages and refugee camps. A significant portion of Fire Nation revenue goes toward their support.

Everyone's heard the rumors, of course, of the Avatar's efforts to revive airbending culture. In the Fire Nation in particular, the Airbending Acolytes are a lewd joke. Everyone knows about them...

Zuko had thought that they were nothing but exaggerated rumors. Any truth to them would be... impossible.

But he knows how charismatic the Avatar can be. And Aang isn't a boy anymore but a young man, tall and strong and full of determination.

Things are impossible until Aang decides to do them.


	8. Chapter 8

The following spring, Katara makes her first visit alone to the Fire Nation.

There is nothing remarkable about it, only that it has never happened before. Katara is still the Avatar's Ambassador, and she also represents the Southern Water Tribe. If that weren't enough, she herself is known as one of the greatest waterbenders alive, however much she tries to dismiss her reputation.

She arrives with little ceremony and gets straight to work. She has spent some time in the North recently, and she is full of ideas about healing centers. She wants to start a great home for healing here in the capital as well as a string of clinics the entire length of the Fire Nation archipelago.

Fire nation physicians and water tribe healers stream in and out of the palace while the ministers complain that the waterbender has overstepped bounds or disrupted some routine. Zuko ignores them while Mai makes subtle, biting comments, questioning the loyalties of those who do not value the health of the Fire Nation. This suffices to quiet the dissent.

Zuko lets Katara go about her work undisturbed. As long as the treasury can afford it, he supports it. It's one less thing he has to worry about.

He doesn't interact with her often, but sometimes he'll pass her in a corridor or see her at a meal and it's like the strength of her waterbending is a subtle tug on his blood.

Zuko thinks of the tides.

Sometimes the tide becomes a fire in his blood, and late at night, when he can pause from his work, he makes his way to Mai's chambers.

He dreams of the ocean and blue eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

Zuko might as well be chained to the palace, but Katara comes and goes as she pleases. At a moment's notice she's gone to visit a village or see to a clinic. Zuko wouldn't even know when she is in the palace, but that he is always finding her – not in the halls or the meeting chambers but in the courtyards. Like Zuko, Katara prefers solitude and quiet when she can get it, and they find themselves haunting the same forgotten gardens.

It's like a secret. They never speak of it. In fact, they never speak. For all that they used to fight each other, fiercely, during the war, now Zuko feels almost timid when they find themselves alone. She must feel something similar, because she allows the silence to rest peaceful between them.

Zuko realizes that Katara must be past eighteen now. Her wide blue eyes seem to hold every ocean she's crossed. Every time their gazes meet, Zuko sees the ocean in her eyes and he feels as though he's made of nothing but cinders and ash.


	10. Chapter 10

Katara leaves in the winter. The air cools, the palace quiets, and then there is the month when he doesn't sleep. The assassins' darts start getting closer and closer and so Zuko stops sleeping. He dons his black clothing and his blue mask and he slips out into the night and he hunts.

Sometimes it's Azula or his mother that he's chasing and he knows that he is losing his mind but it feels so good to be moving and alive again that Zuko doesn't mind.

He finds them. With help, of course. Mai somehow summoned Ty Lee from wherever she had disappeared to. Together with a few trusted guards they uncover the plot. They chase them down.

Zuko's task is to defang the vipers. He could execute them. He could make an example of them. He could corral and eliminate their entire families, obliterate the conspiracy down to its roots and smallest seeds.

Zuko chooses exile. The Earth Kingdom is more than happy to keep an eye on war-mongering Fire Nation traitors.

It surprises him, how easy it is to let go of vengeance.

All he wants to do is sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

The ministers have started grumbling about marriage, lineage, heirs. Zuko can already envision the parade of poised, eligible young ladies ready to simper and wilt and seduce him.

Ready to bat their eyes, glance over their shoulders, rock their hips in whispers of silk.

Ready to secure advancement and wealth for their families.

Ready to use him.

Ready to consume him.

And then... Then the lies and the manipulation.

The poison. The dagger. The insurrection.

Then the war.

Zuko knows how this story goes.

He remembers.

Faithful Mai stays at his side. She herself would be an appropriate bride, as his ministers constantly remind him.

Luckily Mai understands as well as he does how happy a royal family can be.


	12. Chapter 12

It takes a couple of years of Katara journeying through all the nations on her own, but eventually, inevitably, she and Aang are back together. Zuko doesn't need to see anything to know what's going on. The energy between them is like the hum before a lightening strike.

For Zuko, sex is a release, a pathway to sleep. It's almost a defeat.

He can't imagine the details, but with Aang and Katara it's like they've discovered some new form of bending. They're full of tight, secret smiles and a new focus and some hidden energy.

It's meditation, Toph explains, managing to simultaneously eat, nurse an infant, and converse with the Fire Lord in a low, offhand tone. Aang and Katara have missed dinner for a meeting or for... meditation.

Only Sokka is needed for it to be a true reunion.

Sokka and Zuko's uncle and that flying lemur creature and the threat of war and constantly running for their lives from his power-mad sister.

They meditate while having sex?

Something like that. I guess it's working for them.

Katara hasn't been meeting his eyes lately. When she walks past him now she greets him with a small nod, full of grace and power as if she is the queen and he is the peasant. Somehow it makes it even more impossible to get her out of his mind.

Toph is going on, telling him more than he wants to know. ...Aang still wants Katara to be the mother of his children. All of his children. I don't think Katara will ever be ready for that. Good for her she can control at least her own blood, she adds, chuckling.

Katara is a blood bender, of course. Without moving a muscle she can bend her own blood. Across a room, across a palace, she can bend his own. She could drag the blood down from his brain and hold it in his heart any moment she chose.

Careful, Sparky, or you'll give yourself away, Toph chides. At some point even Aang might notice your obsession.

Zuko scoffs. As if it matters.

I'm the Fire Lord. She's a water peasant.

Aang and Katara finally enter, calling out greetings and apologies. They're more discreet than they were years ago. Now they walk a half step apart with their hands barely touching, but they both exude that peace and that power.

Zuko continues his litany in his mind: I'm the Fire Lord and she's a water peasant and she's bending her blood with the Avatar.


	13. Chapter 13

Sometimes Zuko dreams of a child. His child. Clear amber eyes. A face untouched by worry or fears or betrayal or the gnawing, consuming doubt.

His own childhood was happy once.

Once.

It would be nice to imagine that he could create some sense of happiness and security again.

Zuko only trusts Mai.

Mai, who has remained by his side.

Beautiful, sharp-witted, faithful Mai.

He trusts Mai.

It takes all of his courage to ask her the question.


	14. Chapter 14

She does not want to be his wife. She does not want to bear his children.

Somehow he should have expected that. And that was bad enough. But now she does not even want to touch his body or share his bed.

She said it as if he should have known that it would end like this, as if he should have seen this catastrophe coming from a long way off.

Zuko rages. She was one of the few steady and supportive people in his life. She was supposed to hold him up but instead now she has thrown everything into chaos all around him and within him.

For what? Is there another man? Or has she come to despise him? Does the very sight of him sicken her?

For the first time in a long time Zuko feels like he contains an inferno. It is all he can do to stop himself from setting fire to every scrap of silk hanging in the room. He wants to frighten her. He wants to burn off the perfectly sculpted locks of hair that frame her perfectly emotionless face.

Mai ignores his anger in favor of staring beyond the wall, distance in her eyes.

It's not that I want to leave you, Zuko, she says each word slowly. I don't want anything. No, I want to feel... something. ...I do feel something for you, Zuko.

It's not enough.

It's not enough to take the job.

She would hate it.

More than she already hates it.

She says something more, something about staying in the palace, something about how someone has to keep things in control.

It's enough. Zuko can feel the flames rising in his throat, scorching his eyes. "I am the Fire Lord, and I banish you!"

Rather than flinching away in fear, Mai just meets his gaze for a few throbbing heartbeats and finally sighs. You'll get over me, Zuko.

If that was meant to hurt him, Zuko is too furious to feel the pain. "Go!"

Mai holds herself even more still and Zuko can see what little interest their discussion held for her depart from her eyes. In one graceful sweep, she bows to the floor, then turns and leaves the room without a backward glance.

Mai is gone.

Zuko feels his world rock and shift and slowly settle back into place.

Another supporter has left him, betrayed him.

Soon Zuko will be all alone on the board. One lone, remaining, undefended king.


	15. Chapter 15

Katara is standing on his balcony, looking out over the sea. Zuko knows that his bed is behind him, and he can hear the waves crashing relentlessly against the rocks far below.

She turns toward him, the wind tugging at her hair and her clothing while her blue eyes pierce him as they did years ago, when they were so young and he was the enemy.

I don't want Aang, she tells him.

She steps closer. I don't want anyone.

And then she is there with her arms and her hair wrapped around him and her mouth is hot and wet and she is burning. His blood is burning and he can hear the waves crashing.

The waves are crashing into the tower far below and Katara is warm and substantial in his arms and the stones are cracking and crumbling and the palace is crashing down.

Katara is in his arms warm and soft and hot and perfect and they are falling together, crashing together into the sea.

He pulls her closer, holds her tight and shuts his eyes, waiting to hit the water, waiting to be crushed, ready to drown.

Zuko wakes up gasping, tangled in sheets damp with sweat.

Zuko wakes up alone.


	16. Chapter 16

Mai has left the palace, but not to her family's estate.

She has not gone to Ember Island. She has not gone to any well known retreat.

It takes nearly three months for Zuko's soldiers and spies to conclude that the lady Mai no longer resides in the Fire Nation.

She has vanished.

As soon as he learns it, Zuko feels himself come over by an icy calm.

It all makes sense now.

She has gone to regroup with Ty Lee.

She has gone to find Azula.

(Azula is dead. Zuko remembers the battle. He killed her himself with her own lightning. Her eyes grew so wide and Katara rushed to her. Katara who hated Azula even more than she ever hated Zuko, Katara was crying "her heart has stopped" Azula not moving her eyes so wide. She was dead she was dead she was dead because he killed her.)

Mai has gone to find Azula but there is no Azula anymore so that means that Mai must be Azula now.

Zuko shakes his head. He knows it's absurd, but...

It starts to make sense.

The whole time Mai was was with him, she was collecting power in her own right. Now she has enough ties forged from blackmail and debt. She doesn't need him anymore.

And wherever she has gone to, she won't be gone for long.

She'll be back, sooner or later, back to sheathe a dagger in his side.

She'll be back, and Zuko will almost certainly find himself caught in whatever snare she devises.

She'll return, and Zuko will fail.

He is one step closer to losing everything.

He is alone on a precipice.

He feels as though he is falling.

Falling. Breathless.

Nearly free.


	17. Chapter 17

She is here again.

The palace breathes again. The walls that had been closing in on him return to their former shape and size.

Zuko can speak again and sleep again.

He had been working. For months and months, all he had done was work. It had gotten so that he could not read the words in front of him, could barely discern the shape of his own seal. Surely he had accomplished much in those months of endless work, endless flame-lit nights that bled into sun-drenched days, endless messages and envoys and treaties. The production of Toph Beifong's expanded holdings, the access to the markets she commanded, all of those projects had moved forward and become realized.

Perhaps Toph had noticed something. Zuko found himself writing to her at least once every week.

Perhaps Aang had noticed something. He had been here, last month or last year or whenever it was, overseeing the cultural exchange. In return for Earth Kingdom citizenship to Fire Nation colonists, the Fire Nation was to host a few generations' worth of Earth Kingdom dignitaries, artists, and scholars.

Zuko said yes, yes, yes, let the ministers grumble. Without Mai here to quiet them, let them grumble and sabotage and conspire.

They could not stop his work. They cannot stop the future.

These changes that Zuko is forcing upon them will take root. Even if the first efforts are destroyed entirely, the new way will grow again and it will bear fruit.

Perhaps Aang noticed something of his desperation. He must have sent her to him, because suddenly she is here.

Katara, arriving in a convoy of Water Tribe ships. A minor invasion.

She says that she is here to check on the healing centers and oversea their progress. She says that she is here to talk about how the Water Tribe and Fire Nation navies can work together in the interest of trade.

She stares at Zuko with her blue eyes, stares at him as she hasn't done in years and he has to remind himself that it isn't a dream.

She is here to crash into his palace and wash everything away.

She is here to relieve him, release him, end him, save him.


	18. Chapter 18

Sokka is here as well. Together with Katara and a few of the Fire Nation's best (remaining) engineers, they design a ship that uses fire and water together to travel faster than any other ship their world has ever seen.

The ship doesn't just power through the water, it... swims.

Even sharing the design with the Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdom, more speed means more wealth. Even Zuko's most recalcitrant and isolationist ministers are beginning to see the benefits of cooperation as their pockets swell.

Sokka's humor has matured into something quiet, sharp, and fierce. When he deigns to acknowledge the Fire Lord, he regards Zuko with a nod, which Zuko has come to see as typical of the Southern Water Tribe. They are peasants who somehow see true royalty as beneath them.

Katara's glances at him are triumphant and radiant. It's working. Finally, the peace they won is working and everyone can see the results.

She beams at him and Zuko grants a small smile in return.

Something is going right at last.

He knows that disaster must soon follow.


	19. Chapter 19

Disaster arrives as a visitor from the Earth Kingdom.

Her name is Kaiza, and she is perfect.

Descended from an ancient Fire Nation line but colony born and bred. She is the niece of two of his ministers but she also has significant ties to Earth Kingdom wealth.

She is poised. She is pretty enough. She seems to be intelligent.

She also has a certain way with people that Mai, for example, lacks.

Zuko notices that when she smiles at his courtiers, it seems genuine. He finds that he has no idea when she might be lying and when she might be telling the truth.

She seems genuinely interested and genuinely kind, but always demure and always polite.

Zuko knows. Before she steps off the ramp of one of the new sea-fire ships to explain herself, Zuko knows the truth.

This woman can only be a gift from Mai.

Mai has outdone herself.

She has found the perfect bride.

Zuko smiles a brittle smile as he welcomes Lady Kaiza into his palace.

He knows, he already knows, that he will marry her.

He can delay the inevitable, but he must marry her. She is perfect. There will never be a more perfect bride for him, for his nation.

Mai has sent him poison in bloom.


	20. Chapter 20

It happened with a touch. He gestured toward her while she happened to move toward him and then his hand was touching her shoulder, his fingers resting warm on the bare skin of her arm.

For a moment, two moments, when he should have let go, his hand was resting warm on her shoulder, and Zuko was staring at his hand and then he lifted his gaze to her eyes.

And Katara was simply watching him, silent and calm, too calm.

And Zuko could hear her breathing.

And he could feel his heart beating.

Perhaps he said her name then, and he felt his hand slide down the warm, brown skin of her arm to meet her hand, his fingers briefly entwining with her fingers and then her fingers were laced through the hair at his neck and her arm tugging him down, her breasts pushing into his chest, her mouth, her hot, wet mouth on his mouth.

He had dreamed it so often. He must have been dreaming it.

But she was urgent and real and she moaned and then she tore herself away.

She was staring at him with her mouth open and red, her hair disheveled, staring at him with something like want and something like pity. Staring at him with hunger and sadness in her eyes.

I've been wanting you, too, she tells him.

Zuko, I've been wanting you, too, but you know it can't -

Zuko doesn't care. He doesn't care. He reaches for her again and she doesn't pull away, his mouth on her mouth and his hands in her hair and his body against her body. If he could, he would consume her. He would hold her so close that they would fuse together.

And then she is pulling at him, pulling him closer. She is as strong as he is. She is as desperate as he is, although that's impossible.

He wants to die in her arms.

He has never felt anything like this. It feels light the lightning, but instead of passing through him it just builds and builds, and Zuko's heart is thundering in his chest as he moves with her, within her. He feels like he is dying in her arms, and she is the one crying out.

Later they recover enough to move to his chambers. And then they do it again. And again.

He never wants to stop touching her. Instead of pushing him away, she turns toward him or she climbs on top of him, ravenous, with tears in her eyes.

Zuko expected a drowning. Instead they are going to set each other alight and they will burn until only ashes remain.


	21. Chapter 21

Time passes by in a blur and then she is leaving him. She tears herself away, saying something about her obligations, touching his face and looking into his eyes, and all Zuko can hear is that she is leaving.

He feels like a bender again, like a warrior again, when she is with him. When she leaves, he feels as though he could summon all the elements. He feels as though the wind itself must drive her back to his side. He feels as though he can drag the ocean into his palace to beach her ship against his walls. He will raise a massive wall of earth to close her in and keep her.

He wonders how Aang could ever have let her go.

Aang.

They didn't speak about it, but of course, he knows. She never left him. She still loves him. She is leaving Zuko to return to him.

Aang.

Aang who only ever loses control where Katara is concerned.

Aang will find out, sooner or later, and then it will be the Avatar summoning the earth and the wind and the sea and perhaps it will be fire itself that finds him.

Let the Avatar come. Zuko will go straight out to meet him, face to face and eye to eye.

Zuko will fight for her.

Against the Avatar, Zuko will lose.

She was worth it.


	22. Chapter 22

The weeks and months crawl past as Zuko awaits his destruction.

Of course it can come from within as easily as from without.

Lady Kaiza smiles politely. She is pleasant, and she is patient.

Lady Kaiza doesn't complain about the fact that the Fire Lord has housed her in the most distant and neglected wing of his palace or that he routinely ignores her requests for an audience. Let his ministers handle it.

Katara is traveling. His spies track her movements from city to city, nation to nation, port to port. Her path crosses that of Avatar Aang. They see each other in private (his spies report) and then... they each move on.

Katara is circling around the world, and eventually her path turns back toward the Fire Nation.

Among other things, his spies have discovered her favorite tea, or what passes for tea. On an impulse, Zuko begins ordering it in bulk from the northern water tribe. The first sip tastes like fermented sea water. The second tastes like the juice from a half-picked sea prune. It only gets more and more putrid from there. Remembering his uncle's advice, Zuko has begun serving it at state occasions. He enjoys watching his ministers blink tears from their eyes and purse their lips, sip by sip by sip.


	23. Chapter 23

Katara's ship is coming closer. There is no question now. She is coming back.

Zuko is tearing the palace apart. To build a new room for her chambers, he is expanding one of the courtyards and adding a lake. Soon anyone wishing to visit her suite must cross over a long and narrow bridge to reach it.

And then even sooner than expected she is here. She has returned. She is here.

In his throne room she is formal and polite, speaking of healing and trade. Of course, she is ignoring what was between them. It was nothing to her. She thought it was a mistake. She -

In private her gaze is for him again, her arms are for him again. He sinks into her and he thinks the uncertainty will drive him mad - when will she leave again, why does she stay.

When Katara sees the changes he's making in the palace she simply stares at him as if he's lost his mind.

He has. He has.

But she is with him again. There is no way for him to tell her what that means to him.

Zuko thinks of carving her a necklace. And then he thinks of summoning all the firebenders and earthbenders in his nation to create a new island for her out of the molten earth itself.


	24. Chapter 24

To be continued in a companion piece,

"She Moves with the Sea"

 _The normality that she thought she wanted was the fantasy of a little girl who died long ago._


End file.
